You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
by siriusondrun
Summary: The mind of 15yearold Severus Snape through the day when his world fell apart and his worst memory became reality. Onesided SSLE


A/N: Boredom+BeatlesSnapefic, apparently. Who knew?

Legal stuff: JK Rowling (aka our goddess and Mistress of all that makes this planet spin properly) owns the characters and situations contained within and Warner Bros. owns the movie rights. And "You've got to hide your Love Away" is by the Beatles and I don't it or them or anything like that. In short, I own nothing.

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

Severus Snape trudged up the stairs from the Slytherin Common Room, wondering why, if the OWLs were supposed to be so dratted important, they were consistantly held on such warm, distracting days. At least this one wasn't one he was going to have to get through by the seat of his trousers; Defense Against the Dark Arts was by far his favorite and most knowledgable subject. With this thought in mind he set off towards the Great Hall, a little more spring in his otherwise rather flat-footed step.

To his great joy, the powers that be decided to doubly bless him as he entered the Entrance Hall with the sight of his best friend Lily Evans. She was walking down the stairs from the Gryffindor's common room with one of her other friends, giggling at something. Severus felt his sallow face heat slightly. She was so beautiful, he thought, barely concealing a lovestruck smile. Her dark red hair seemed even shinier than normal today, and as she laughed her deep green eyes sparkled. Severus sighed, taking a long scrap of parchment out of his bag and gripping it tightly in his hand. Today (he'd decided the previous night) was finally going to be the day he asked her out. He had most of the letter already finished and just needed a few minutes after the test to put the last few touches on it and sign it.

"H-Hey, Lily," Severus said, sidling up to her as he quickly stuffed the letter out of sight. "How are you?"

"Oh, good morning, Sev," Lily said brightly, turning to face him. "I didn't see you there."

"Yeah, but _he_ saw _you_," Lily's friend giggled in a dramatic stage whisper. Severus went red and to his surprise, so did Lily.

"Mary! For heaven's sake!" she hissed, laughing. "You're such a pest."

"Lily! Mary! Over here!" a girl called from across the Great Hall, waving at the others.

"I've got to go, Sev," Lily said, smiling at him. "Um, good luck on the test."

"Thanks," Severus mumbled. "You too."

Lily waved, then jogged off with her friend to the other side of the hall and sat down. Severus caught himself staring after her with a silly grin on his face, but quickly twisted his expression back into its usual sour scowl as James Potter and his cronies stalked self-richeously into the hall. The last thing he needed was for Potter to see him going moony over Lily and have yet another thing to torture him with. Instead he took a seat at one of the small exam tables and hoped they would start the test soon; this was the one test he was assured an "O" on and he wanted to make the most of it.

Finally, after two rolls of parchement and a rather excruciating case of writer's cramp later, the test was over and Severus felt even more positive about the day than he had before. He wandered around the ground a little, keeping half an eye on where Lily and her friends were headed, and took up his quill to finish the letter. Now was the best time to give it to her, because next was the Defense practical exam and he wouldn't have to come face-to-face with her again until dinner to find out her answer. He parked himself ina clump of bushes, unseen by the others milling around him--namely Potter's gang, who were under a beech nearby--and spread the letter out on his knee.

_My dearest Lily,_

_How are you? I hope you're not working yourself too hard with your OWLs. I mean, with your brains you don't really have to work hard. Anyway, I'm sure you'll fine, so don't worry about them too much and just keep you head up._

_The real reason I'm writing this is well, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're really close friends and you're pretty much my only friend outside of the others in my house and I want to say that I really, really like you. In a real, boy-likes-girl sort of way and I know this is odd and sudden and your other friends don't really like me, but I really like you. you're smart and beautiful and sweet and it means a lot to me that even though we're in competing Houses you're still my best friend._

_So...do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?_

_-Severus_

He rather disliked how rambly and disorganized he sounded in it, but as this was more or less his last chance to properly ask her out somewhere before they had to go home, it would do. Severus carefully rolled up the parchment and put it back in his bag, climbing to his feet. He set off towards the lake, where Lily was sitting with her friends, almost too preoccupied with the thought of finally telling Lily how he felt about her to notice that Potter and Black had gotten up as well until Potter called, "All right, Snivellus?" at him.

Severus gritted his teeth, cursing the day James Potter had been conceived, and turned around with his wand almost drawn. Potter, however, countered with a disarming charm before Severus could even open his mouth. Severus slowly raised his foot a little off the ground while Potter preened and dove for his wand, nearly reaching it before an Impediment Jinx rendered him motionless.

Potter and Black strode importantly up to where Severus lay prone on the ground, struggling with all his might to break the jinx before they decided to embarass him further. He was acutely aware of how close Lily was to them and was not fond of the idea of being humiliated right in front of her yet again. Of course, Lily's proximity was probably the reason for Potter's idiocy in the first place.

"You--wait," Severus snarled, glaring venomously up at Potter. A thousand hexes and afflictions sprang to mind, each one screaming to be used on that smirking, smug face. Severus struggled again, letting fly several of his father's most treasured oaths mixed with the hexes his mother used to counter them, hoping that perhaps his wand would spring into action despite its distance from him.

"Wash your mouth out," Potter admonished, casting a cleaning charm.

Severus tasted soap and gagged, suddenly reminded of being a small child and being forced by his father to chew on a bar of soap for telling the man precisely what he thought of him. The soap taste got worse and worse as the suds spilled out of his mouth and down his throat and all the while he could hear Potter and Black above him, laughing at him.

"Leave him ALONE!"

The laughing stopped abruptly, as did the soap, as Lily's voice rang out over the scene. Severus blinked pitifully up at her, his mind reeling with embarassment at his situation and hatred for Potter putting him in it as Lily railed at Potter for picking on him. Potter, in the ultimate show of arrogance, decided to use it as an opportunity to ask Lily out and was shot down rather diffinitively, much to Severus's delight. Now, however, it was more schadenfreude than anything else; his mind wasn't on how funny Lily's retort had been, it was focused directly on revenge as he slowly inched towards his wand, careful not to attract attention away from Potter and Lily's row. With a thrill of dark joy Severus wrapped his hand around his wand and rolled over, casting a lightning-quick "Sectumsempra!" at Potter. His aim served to be worse than first predicted, however, as the jinx only nicked Potter's cheek instead of making his face explode into a thousand cuts like Severus had hoped. Instead, Potter turned and Severus suddenly found himself hanging by one ankle in the air, effectively flashing all and sundry who could see the duel.

"Let him down!" Lily shouted, once again coming to Severus's aid. Despite his current predicatment Severus couldn't manage to feel anything but resent or find her help anything but embarassing, as she was a girl and he was a boy and it was supposed to be the other way around as far as saving the day usually went.

"You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus," Potter sneered as he released Severus.

Severus felt undying hatred toward the other boy boiling up from the pit of his stomach and though he meant to shout something foul about Potter, his previous resentful thoughts about Lily's aide came pouring out from within instead. "I don't need help from a filthy little Mudblood like her!" he shouted, and immediately he wanted very much to crawl into a hole and die. The word had been so dangerously on the tip of his tongue for so long with only sheer willpower keeping him from using it around her because he wanted so badly for her to like him as much as he liked her and now, because of that stupid, arrogant arserag Potter, everything had been ruined. Lily's face told him all he needed to know; her blank expression and hurt-filled eyes spoke more of the pain she'd been struck with than her icy tone and renewed viciousness towards Potter. The world had crumbled just a little bit farther from beneath Severus's feet.

That night Severus paced in front of Gryffindor Tower's entrance, waiting for Lily to get back. He'd sent her friend Mary in after her, swearing quite loudly to stay in front of the portrait until Lily spoke to him, even if he had to sleep out there and wait until she came out in the morning. Finally Lily emerged in her dressing gown, a pitilessly furious expression on her face.

"What do you want, Snape?" Lily asked coly. "I have OWLs in the morning, I hope you realize."

"Lily, I'm sorry," Severus said, all but pleading with her.

"No you're not," Lily replied shortly.

"Seriously, I'm sorry."

"Not interested."

"I'm sorry!"

"Save your breath!" Lily snapped. "I only came out here because you told Mary you'd sleep out here."

"I was. I mean, I would have," Severus said, cursing his fumbling for words. "Lily, I never meant to call you a Mudblood, it just slip--"

"Slipped out?" Lily gave a humorless laugh. "It's too late, Snape. I'm sick of having to stand up for you and defend you to all of my friends. It's over. You've chosen your way with those nasty little death eater pals and I've chosen mine."

"I didn't mean it!" Severus insisted desperately, trying to hold her out of the common room as long as opossible to possibly get through to her.

"You call everyone of my birth a Mudblood, Severus," Lily snapped. "Why should I be any different?"

Severus tried to think of something to say other than blurting out that he loved her, but it was too late. Lily had already turned away and was heading back through the tower entrance. Over her shoulder, Severus met the gaze of James Potter. Potter smiled nastily at him and waved sarcastically as Lily pulled the picture shut.

Severus sat in an uncomfortable armchair in front of the fireplace in the Slytherin common room, glad that nobody was awake to see the streaks of tears that ran along his pallid cheeks as he reread his letter. Lily could never see this now; she would never know how he felt, and it was better that way. That toerag Potter would get what he wanted (as he nearly always did), not to mention he now had Severus's feeling for Lily to dangle in front of Severus as a way of bullying him, and as always the short end of the stick resided firmly in the hand of Severus Snape. Severus sighed, slowly tearing the letter into strips and tossing them one by one into the fire and watching them burn.

_How can I even try?_

_I can never win..._

_Hey, you've got to hide your love away..._

_Hey, you've got to hide your love away..._


End file.
